edent – Terence Eden’s Blog

How I got my username on (nearly) every site

@edent — Wed, 17 Jul 2019 11:30:38 +0000

I go by "edent" on most websites. It's short, relates to my real name, and is usually unique. I quite often sign up to things just to snag the name. But there have been a couple of sites where someone else has got there first and started using "my" name.

I don't own the trademark, nor have any special rights to that name. So I wanted to document how I recovered it on a few prominent sites.

NPM

The ~edent account had no activity on it. I emailed support to see if I could claim it as an inactive account. They said:

We'd suggest that you follow through our name dispute process. In short, email the current scope owner of the package and cc support@npmjs.com to request the name.

I emailed the owner. NPM also sent some follow-up emails to them. After a month, they transferred the name to me.

While it was easy for me, I do feel slightly guilty. Yes, the account seemed abandoned - but one month isn't a long time if you're on holiday, in hospital, or otherwise incommunicado.

I was quite late to popular chat app Telegram. By the time I got there, edent was already taken. I sent the owner a few messages to see if they'd relinquish it - but they didn't reply.

Telegram's dispute resolution programme is a bit simple:

If your desired username is already taken, we will be happy to help you acquire it for your account or channel, provided that you have that same username on at least two of these services: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.

I already had Facebook and Twitter - and I proved that to Telegram - so they released the name. Again, I feel slightly bad about taking a username from someone. It's a policy that many people have complained about

SoundCloud

Another completely dormant account. They'd posted no content. I dropped an email to support, and showed that I was edent on other services. Their reply was pretty brutal:

In line with our Inactive URL policy I have reached out to the current owner of and given them 48 hours notice to become active on the account. If no activity takes place within this period then we will be happy to transfer the URL.

48 hours seems like a really short window. I suspect they could see that no one had logged into the account for many years. To assuage my guilt, I waited for a week before prompting SoundCloud to transfer the account.

YouTube

When I first became aware of YouTube usernames, they used Google+. For some reason, Google didn't like the name edent. Google's name policies are deeply weird. I'd amassed a thousand or so YouTube subscribers, which unlocked the "creator" channel. So after a few frustrating emails, I was able to get youtube.com/edent

Ko-Fi

Ko-Fi is sort of like Patreon - people can send you money for the work you create. In order to get a short name, you have to be a premium user. I had a chat with the people who run the site and - because I'm such a social-media-superstar(!) they gave me a gold account for free.

If you'd like a discounted gold account, you can use my referral link https://ko-fi.com/gold?a=Q5Q4JHML

Where it didn't work

There are a few sites and services where I've not grabbed the name I wanted.

I connected to the chap who currently uses /in/edent and asked politely if I could use the name. I told him that I had no rights to force him to give it up, and it was just a friendly request.

He uses it quite actively, and quite reasonably didn't want to change it. I can't complain about that!

LinkedIn don't have a username dispute process that I could find. If a user releases their username, you can't claim it straight away

If a member uses a URL and then changes it, that URL will be unavailable for use by yourself and other members for six months.

I'm sure if you're a big brand or celebrity, you can contact LinkedIn and grab the name you want. But I can live with being /in/TerenceEden

Instagram

Insta doesn't let you swap names, as far as I can find. But it will let you claim a name if someone is impersonating you.

Please attach a clear photo of yourself holding an accepted form of ID. Make sure that both your face and the photo in the ID are clearly visible.

The person using edent has 0 posts, but still received ~900 followers. They weren't following anyone. I am only slightly more active than them, so I tried my luck with the dispute process.

I tried sending off my passport photo - but the page kept giving an HTTP400 error.

I used a smaller photo, fewer words in the complaint box, being logged in and out, different browsers. Nothing.

And then, out of the blue, I got this response:

We can’t give you access to this account or continue with your request because we haven’t received an acceptable ID that matches the information listed on the account.

As the user isn't pretending to be me or using my real name, I'm stuck being _edent_. Ah well.

Flickr

I don't understand Flickr, and suspect I never will. I am flickr.com/edent - but my "screen name" is terenceeden. When I try to change that to "edent" I get told I can't. I've looked around in Flickr's support forums, and no one seems to know what this vestigial "screen name" is for, so I'm going to ignore it. I have the vanity URl and that's all I care about.

Vivino

On the wine rating app, I am _edent_. The guy using edent has more followers than me and is much more active than me. His real name also shortens nicely to "edent".

Oh well, I should have been quicker off the mark!

Tumblr

I recently received an email from tumblr asking if I was still using one of my old names. They said if they didn't receive a reply, they'd release the name for general use.

That's their stated policy - so I all I can do is watch and wait.

edent.com

In a fit of unbridled optimism, I thought I'd try and buy the domain edent.com

HAHAHAHAHA! Nope! No. I cannot afford $19,000. I tried bargaining them down. The domain has remained unsold for years - there are no "e-dentists" who want it at that price.

Every few months, the registry gets in contact with me again.

Even at $10k I'd struggle to justify this. I'm not an international brand, I'm just this guy you know...

I'm quite content with edent.tel.

Some final thoughts

Usernames are hard. Perhaps, in an ideal world, we'd all use Indie Auth and use our domain names as our usernames. I'd be twitter.com/shkspr.mobi, for example.

But it is useful to have separate identities on different systems, and the cost of a domain name is still too high for most people in the world.

Naming disputes are a tricky customer service problem. Giving a few months for an owner of an abandoned account to respond seems reasonable to me.

Or, perhaps I should stop being so precious about building a "personal brand"?

Nah!

My Internet fried Katie has written a similar guide to different services.
Further discussion on HN.

How I built a responsive & semantic "Contact Me" page in under 16KB

@edent — Sun, 16 Apr 2017 09:25:11 +0000

Recently, I've become obsessed with the speed and efficiency of my web sites. I'm in the middle of slimming down this blog - but I thought I'd take a first attempt at my contact site - https://edent.tel/

A few weeks ago, the .tel registry released their domain restrictions - users can now host their site anywhere. I'd already experimented with about.me/edent as a contact site - but even that seemed too weighty for my needs.

Here's how I used CSS to craft a beautiful homepage, HTML5 to give it a sprinkling of syntactic sugar, and SVG to make it as tiny as possible.

The entire site is less that 16 KB when gzipped for transport - and only 36KB uncompressed.

All CSS and Images are inline - that reduces the number of requests which need to be made to the server.

Depending on your hardware, the entire page should load and render in under 0.3 seconds.

Oh, and there's no JavaScript to slow things down either!

SVG

For the touch screen icons, I used SVG. I've long been fascinated with the magic of vector graphics - I love how they obliterate file sizes while looking fantastic when shrunk or enlarged.

As an example, the regular Twitter logo when optimised as a PNG is around 16KB. The SVG is only 436 Bytes. Yes, that's right, just 3% of the size!

In total, those 25 SVGs added up to less than 20KB. They are so small, web browsers spend longer connecting to the server than the time taken to download them. So I placed them inline to the HTML - that saved a heap of downloading and rendering time.

I didn't skimp on accessibility either! Léonie Watson's brilliant blog post on accessible SVGs gave me everything I needed to add alt-text to the images. I was even able to mung the HTML enough that the site works on the text-only Lynx browser!

Browser support for SVG is thorough. Because of their small size, mobile browsers have always had good support for them - and that support has filtered up the chain to desktop. It was only when going back as far as IE8 that I experienced any real problems.

Ultimately, there are too few people using those old browsers for me to bother with fall-back PNGs.

CSS

In keeping with the .tel theme, I decided to make the site look like a modern touch screen phone.

I found the Marvel Pure CSS Phones - a collection of fairly tight and responsive CSS classes which simulate the look of a phone. I trimmed down the files and made the "screen" portion resize depending on the number of elements inside it.

As with all moderately complex CSS projects - there's a tension between relative and absolute sizing. I managed to bash enough % signs into the existing code to make the phone scale with the size of the screen. On absolutely tiny screens, the font does get rather cramped - I should probably use some media queries to sort that out!

HTML5 - the semantic web

The site has three main pieces of semantic markup.

Schema.org Person - a way of structuring data on the web. This allows me to define facts about myself in a predictable manner, including how the linked sites are related to me.
hCard microformat - to me this seems identical to the above, but my even nerdier friends complained that I'd left it out.
OpenGraph Tags - when the page gets shared on services like Facebook and Twitter, the sites are able to pull in metadata about the page.

Hopefully, that will have a positive effect on SEO as well.

I also considered WebFinger, but that seems like dead standard - no-one is using it.

All the chat app links should open up your messaging app - if you have one. I've got a long rant about URI Schemes coming up.

Security

Finally, I used Let's Encrypt to generate a security certificate. I considered making it mandatory to use https when connecting - but there are still too many browsers out there which can't cope with modern security requirements. For now, I'm giving people the option of accessing it in the clear.

A look back at 2016

@edent — Fri, 18 Nov 2016 07:51:23 +0000

Rather than wait until the end of the December, I like to use my birthday to reflect on how the year has been.

This has been a very weird year. I mean, even aside from all the news, it was just an absolute mess of a year.

I ended 2015 by unexpectedly winning tickets to the Star Wars premiere! That day in December was, basically, the high point of 2016...

I started off the year with an amazing job opportunity. I was all set for a perfect role which then, unexpectedly, fizzled away. No one's fault - corporate restructures, people moving teams, budgetary constraints - just a series of circumstances which cause the role to evaporate.

Without a doubt, I should have learned by now not to rely too heavily on any one plan - but this was such a certainty, that I didn't have a contingency. That was rather naïve of me.

I also had a client flake out on me. I'd had several meetings and conference calls with them about the cool stuff they wanted me to do. And then... nothing. They couldn't get their tech to work, and their guy was going to call me, and they might need to rethink things, and... and... and...

I suck at following up on opportunities. I know that sometimes I am often the weak link in the chain. I'm pretty sure I've let some business slip away because I've thought "Oh, I can do that tomorrow" - but never do. Well, there's a New Year's Resolution for me; be less crap.

My wife's parents made the decision that they wanted to retire to New Zealand. This occupied a surprising amount of time and head-space. Could we afford to buy their house to let them move? Would we be able to store their stuff? Help them clean everything out? Assist with the move? Put them up for a few weeks? How about months?

Basically, a long-running saga which culminated with them coming to live with us for a month, and a fond and slightly sniffley farewell at Heathrow airport in September.

In the middle of all this, we decided to treat ourselves to a week of vegetarian cookery lessons in Fuerteventura. The lessons were amazing - but the holiday experience was not! A few days before the flight, my wife twisted her ankle and was left needing crutches for a week. In all the confusion and stress, I got to Fuerteventura airport only to discover I'd left my driving licence in the UK...

It all got sorted out - but it didn't make for the most relaxing break!

My friend Luke died. The funeral was such a sad and terrible day. I'm not wonderful at expressing my emotions. Another thing for me to get better at.

After months of rejections, both Liz and I managed to get new jobs in the same week! This, of course, comes with its own set of stresses. Should we move house? Will we cope with the pressures of commuting? Will the jobs be fulfilling? Will people in the new offices like us?

ARGH!

Basically, what a thoroughly stressful and unpleasant year.

Or was it?

It's easy for me to focus on the negatives. I think 2016itis makes that mandatory. So it it important that I continually remind myself of all the good there was this year.

My mate Alex got married to a lovely woman called Jennifer. A week later, a different mate called Alex got married to a different woman called Jennifer! A delightful and pleasing coincidence.

I had my work published in a magazine.

We went to see our first gig in ages - Postmodern Jukebox. Brilliant music.

After participating in FameLab last year, I was honoured to be asked to be a judge for this year.

We participated in our first May Morning. An Oxford tradition which involves getting up at stupid-o'clock to ring in the spring.

I did a clutch of media interviews - including You And Yours for the BBC, and a bunch of podcasts.

Several conferences asked me to speak. It is always gratifying to be picked from a CFP - and seeing the quality of the other speakers leaves me humbled. A special shout-out to

DevTalks Cluj - in Romania.

It's always a treat to visit Romania. The tech scene there is busting with energy and the crowds are friendly.

I've blogged about my ThingMonk talk on The (Connected) House of Horrors.

Again, being surrounded by smart people who ask insightful questions is a joy and a privilege.

Hackference Brum. Everyone is always going on about how amazing this conference is. Despite only being an hour away from my home, I've never been. Held in the UK's first cinema, it was an absolute blast.

And, finally, I got a new job! Yes, it is stressful. Yes, the commute is a pain. Yes, I feel like I'm making a positive difference to the world in my own small way.

2016 has been crazy. 2017 can't be any worse, right...?

Touchnote

@edent — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 16:19:05 +0000

If you haven't already heard, I've joined the award winning team at Touchnote ltd.

I was overwhelmed by the support of my friends on Twitter and by the excellent bloggers at Mobile Industry Review and The Really Mobile Project.

http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/2010/04/vodafones-terence-eden-joins-touchnote.html

Starting a new job is never easy - but you guys have given me wind in my sails. My first week has just flown by - so thank you all.

As ever, this blog remains personal. Nothing here is approved, checked or pushed on me from my employers. All opinions and errors are my own and are not those of Touchnote ltd.

Terence Eden - Regeneration

@edent — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 10:49:15 +0000

In 1974, a post-boxing day Britain tuned in to BBC 1 to watch "Robot" - the first Doctor Who story to star Tom Baker.

For the next 6 years, 2 months, and 22 days, Tom Baker was The Doctor.

But, as these things are wont to do, it came to an end. Forgive the spoilers, but The Doctor lay broken and bleeding after The Master threw him off the Pharos Project. Death was certain.

And then...

On the 1st of September, 2003, a young and eager Terence Eden walked into Vodafone to start on the Graduate Training Scheme.

6 years and 7 months later, it's time for a change.

Vodafone took me all over the world. Well... Mostly Düsseldorf! But meetings from San Francisco to Milan gave me plenty of jet-set glamour. Not to mention duty-free and airmiles.

They took me on a fascinating journey from technology to product management via security, handset testing and many other jobs in between. I went from being the lowest rung on the ladder, to managing an international portal deployed in a dozen markets.

But, as even the Time Lords know, 6 years is a long time. It is time for me to regenerate.

So, for the last time, I end this blog post with the words...

I currently work for Vodafone. The opinions expressed are mine and mine alone and do not represent those of Vodafone Group.

Edent says: Find Me

@edent — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 12:50:00 +0000

Where am I?

Most high-end Nokia phones come with a QR reader. If your phone doesn't, I have a list of QR code readers - compatible with most camera phones.